


Parallax

by VivWiley



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Skinner/Scully friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:38:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baltimore? Who the hell wakes up and finds themselves in Baltimore? And then who do you call?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parallax

_sometime between SR 819 and Biogensis_

Like so much else in her inexplicable life, it all made sense only later. In retrospect she was able to see beyond the parallax and realize it had been inevitable, the collision of their particular lives a foregone conclusion. At the time, she wasn't able to find her bearings. She lost everything--her sense of time, herself, place--lost it all to the overwhelming pull of gravity and pure reaction. As she drifted through the black vacuum between the stars, cut off from direction and the familiar tugs of oxygen and gravity, she had no choice but to surrender to events. Only much later did she understand what had been both won and lost in that night.

 

The shrill ring of a phone shattering her sleep was a familiar intrusion. What was unfamiliar was the sudden flash of anger and the tired ache that followed. Damnit. It was Saturday night--Sunday morning?--and once, just this once she had wanted a quiet weekend. A weekend to herself. It wasn't as though he called every weekend, but it had been more frequent of late. And the excuses he used for waking her up and consuming large quantities of her free time were usually so transparent. She had the strong sense he was slowly coming to some momentous decision, and needed her there to help him think or maybe to define the question. But sometimes she just needed a little time on her own.

Her voice was unexpectedly sharp, slightly foreign to her own ear. "What is it, Mulder?"

An odd pause, and a different man answered. "Agent Scully?"

Still caught in the maw of sleep--only partly aware of who she was and where she was--she was struggling to name the voice she knew, but couldn't place, when he continued.

"It's Skinner. I'm sorry to wake you." Another pause, and now she was fully awake, but knew somehow that she should wait for him to finish. "I'm sorry to wake you," he repeated, "but I need your assistance."

She had managed to sit up and lean against her headboard, but at his words she found herself slumping forward, pressed down by a sudden onslaught of images--the veins pulsing on Skinner's neck, his arms strapped to the boards as the surgeon prepared for amputation, the flatline of a heart monitor with nothing left to monitor. She drew a quick breath, fighting for composure that seemed elusive. "What is it, Sir? Where are you?" Her mind already racing, cataloging all the hospitals within range of his Crystal City apartment.

"I'm in..." another pause, and she could hear something that in anyone else she would have called uncertainty threading through his tone. "I'm in Baltimore."

"Baltimore?" She was lost, trying to anchor herself, to find a reference point in a known reality. She looked at the clock again, as though somehow knowing the hour would also help her find her place in the world.

"Yes." Something now that was nearly bemused. "I...look, I was wondering if you could come up here."

"You want me to meet you up there?"

"Uh...yes. That is..." The hesitancy was back. "I'll explain when you get here." He gave her brief, but perfect directions to a diner near Fells Point, but a little away from the trendy parts of the waterfront.

"Got it, Sir. I should be there in less than an hour."

"Thanks, Scully. You don't have to...I mean, thank you." And he hung up before she had time to analyze the color of his tone.

On her way out her door, less than 15 minutes later, it occurred to her that Skinner had only asked her to come, but maybe he'd also called Mulder. She debated whether to call her partner and see if he wanted to share the drive up to Baltimore, and then some echo of Skinner's voice shook her, and she stepped into her car without touching her cel phone.

I-95 was nearly deserted. Eerie patches of brightly lit pavement cut into the blackness and then blinked out as she drove through them into the murmuring darkness of the stretches in between.

Her thoughts flickered black-and-white. It was late at night, no traffic to dodge, no construction diversions, and there was nothing but the long flat road and her thoughts and unruly memories that kept springing to her mind. Images flashed by, ghosts of other late night drives, people who had occupied the passenger seat beside her through the years. There was no coherent pattern to her memories. Fragments of her life passed her by, snatches of old songs, family stories, all the detritus of a life spun ever-so-slightly out of control.

And then as she drove, again, and again, memories of Skinner. Times of confrontation and partnership. His quiet presence that she realized hovered around the edges of so many of her strongest memories. This strange, intertwined existence that she and Mulder and Skinner lived. The shadows they both fought and lived in. Why had he called? What errand pulled her out of her warm bed at this deserted hour?

Somewhere around the exit for Fort Meade, she found herself wondering why she was making this late night journey, on nothing more than the briefest request. But the question evaporated half-formed.

Skinner had asked. She drove on.

 

She arrived at the diner at 2:15 a.m.

It was tucked in a small corner lot in a sleepy or perhaps partly-abandoned residential area. The pot-holed parking lot was empty, and for a moment she doubted herself. This couldn't be the place? There were no squad or unmarked police cars. No bustle or yellow tape. He'd called her to a crime scene, hadn't he?

Or...

She parked her car and sat for a microsecond after she turned off the ignition. A strange anticipation held her momentarily hostage, and she waited, trying to see the edges of the shadow. Then she shook herself. It was late and she was allowing herself to see ghosts that weren't there.

The diner, too, was empty. The fluorescent lights hummed and burred casting their white-green light over worn linoleum counters and a worn waitress of indeterminate age and doubtful orange hair. The booths and counter seats were all unoccupied, and the air smelled of congealing grease and ancient coffee. Her doubt returned, but this was Skinner, and he was not prone to these sorts of mistakes. Her tired mind slipped and fought to find traction. What now? Had this been some sort of elaborate ruse? Thoughts of ambushes suddenly rattled her and she recalled other nights of being summoned out to meetings with people who were not who they were.

She stepped further into the diner. The waitress looked up at her, an automatic curiosity passing over her face, but she made no move to greet Scully.

The door clicked shut behind her and she stepped forward once more and then she saw him. He was in the corner, the row of booth backs had hidden him from her until she moved forward into the room. He was watching her steadily--a gleam of recognition and something else deep in his eyes.

She walked down the aisle and seated herself across from him.

He cradled a cup of coffee in his hand, and after making the initial eye contact with her, he looked nowhere but at the inky liquid in the stained white cup.

"Thanks for getting here so quickly." His voice so low that she almost lost it among the buzz of the lights. Although he was only two feet away from her, she was felt as though they were speaking across a vast distance. He seemed to be only partly there. It was as if the essence of Skinner had departed for some far away land.

"No problem, Sir." She paused, waiting to be told why she was here, in this strange place, at this strange hour.

Skinner drank his coffee. The black surface shone and swayed as he replaced the cup on the table.

Years of partnering with Mulder had taught her the quality of many types of silence. There were silences while one or the other of them counted to 10 or to infinity trying to find the patience to explain their entirely logical theory one more time. There were the silences when there was simply nothing left to say. There were the silences meant to tease, to build up to the moment of revealing the grand truth. And there were the silences that were simply comfortable dwelling places.

She didn't know how to read Skinner. But she knew that the silence she heard right then was none of the silences she knew. So she waited a while longer.

Somewhere from some far off distance, she heard the wail of police sirens rise and fall as they rushed to some other point in the city.

The waitress without asking, or speaking, brought her a cup of coffee and cream, and disappeared again.

The silence stretched, thick and twisting. He seemed more and more distant, although he never moved except to occasionally sip his coffee.

Just as Scully was beginning to wonder if the sun would rise and find them there, Skinner let go of his coffee and looked up at her. This time the angle of his head caused the glare of the overhead lights to reflect white-blue on his glasses, and she couldn't see his eyes.

His voice was stronger, but still she felt like she should be leaning forward to hear him.

"Thanks for coming, Scully. I...it was a lot to ask of you, but I do appreciate it." He drew a deep breath. "The fact of the matter is I'm not sure what I'm doing here."

He looked down again, as though he were trying to read his future, or perhaps his past in the brown dregs at the bottom of his cup.

She said nothing--held still by a combination of surprise and confusion. Something in his tone warned her that nothing tonight would conform to any known pattern.

"I woke up tonight to find myself walking along the streets near the Baltimore train station. I don't know how I got there. That was a couple of hours ago. I walked and walked and finally came here. Then I called you."

She wanted to shake her head, to protest, to deny his words. No one just woke up and found themselves in Baltimore. She wanted to reach over and touch him. To see if it were really Skinner, as if a simple touch of skin to skin could clarify for her this mystery that bloomed strange and frightening in front of her. But she chained her voice, kept her hands still. There were things in heaven and earth not found in her philosophy, as Mulder would have reminded her. And this was Skinner--he did not speak in metaphor or mystery.

He shifted a little before he continued, and now she could see his eyes, but could read nothing in them but the usual cool intelligence. He might have been reporting the closing stock prices. "I'm just not sure what happened. I remember going home tonight after running some errands, and I think I remember having dinner and going to bed, but now....well, I'm just not sure."

She looked at him closely now--noting his clothes, a black henley, jeans, and a leather jacket. Casual, but seasonable attire. She resisted the urge to check his feet to see if he was wearing shoes.

He seemed to have stopped, and it seemed to be her turn to say something.

"What...how...?" It was difficult to find the right way to begin. She fought her way through the dizzying thicket of speculation that clamored in her mind. Theories beginning to form, cast aside and reformed as she tried to deal with his simple and devastating recitation. Hours ago, he'd said. He would have been thinking. "Do you have any theories?"

He shrugged a little. "The things in my blood seem a logical starting point. But, he's never...that is, I've never had this sort of thing happen with them before."

It was time to end that particular masquerade. She tried to keep the sudden sharp anger out of her voice. "You mean Krycek's never controlled your movements before."

His seemed winded - a rabbit punch to the solar plexus. "You know?"

"There are some faces you don't forget." She kept her tone level.

"You didn't say anything."

"We were trying to follow your lead, Sir. We know....none of us are completely free agents anymore, are we? It's hard to know what can be said out loud, sometimes."

He watched her for a long moment, as though trying to gauge her reaction to the knowledge that she'd had for months. He gave a peculiar half-smile. "No, Krycek has never used the controls for this type of thing. Usually he just shows up, activates the fucking bugs for a while and then leaves. Sometimes he wants...information."

For this night, she would only concentrate on the immediate problem. She tucked away her sorrow and dread. Scarred. They were all so scarred, even if the wounds weren't always visible. "So, this could be a test of some other property of the nanobots?"

"Possibly, but there's no residual feeling of the nanobots being activated, and there's been no attempt to contact me, to....gloat." The bitter edge of his voice cut through her, leaving her momentarily wordless. She felt a knife edge along her skin. How do you live when your enemy holds your life very literally in his hands? When pain is only and always only as far away as the next shadow?

"Okay, let's look at other possibilities. How did you get here? Is it possible you drove yourself here?"

He looked out the window, and it surprised her to realize he was fighting off an urge to shout. His voice when he answered her was unnaturally flat. "No, I don't think I did."

She reassessed. "Look, you've been thinking about this for a while. I just got here. What do you think? What do you know?"

"Not fucking much. I'm pretty sure I didn't drive because I don't have my car keys with me, although oddly I do seem to have my spare house key with me." His jaw worked for a second, and then he looked her square in the eyes. She was appalled by the bleakness there.

"When you were 'called' to that dam in Pennsylvania. What did that feel like? What do you remember about how you got there?"

At first she couldn't answer him, tangled in her memories of that night, and the news footage of the morning after. The smell of burning flesh that she was never sure if she really remembered, or only imagined. The memories recovered in the hypnosis session had always had a vaguely artificial quality to them, like synthetic strawberry flavoring--you knew what you were supposed to be tasting, but you understood it was only the suggestion of reality.

"I never did remember how I got there. I only remember the events from being there." She could hear the frustration in her voice, tried to smooth out the ridges. Concentrate on what you do know. "We're pretty sure I didn't drive--my car wasn't there, but we also think I brought Cassandra....I...I just don't know. I have a vague sense of movement, of time blurring, but I don't think I'll ever actually know."

He nodded, and looked down again. She felt oddly that she had both disappointed him and confirmed something he already knew.

"It just occurred to me that the nanobots might not have been the only things I was infected with."

Her gut tightened--low, sharp. Without thinking she reached over and laid her hand on his. He flinched a little at the contact, but didn't move his hand away. They sat for a long time, in an airless silence.

The waitress appeared and refilled their coffees, the slosh and click of the cups being set down breaking their reverie. Scully realized that she had been thinking about nothing at all--her thoughts had dropped into a shapeless void. She wondered how long they had been sitting there.

Then she remembered something. "I don't think you have a chip." Her voice seemed husky, as though she hadn't spoken in days.

He simply looked at her. It frightened her how little hope she saw in him. She could feel him disappearing into the distance again. She pressed down on his hand to emphasize her point.

"While you were hospitalized, and we were trying to deal with the blockage in your veins, we ran more than one complete body scan, using multiple imaging techniques--x-ray, MRI, PET. If you had a chip it would have shown up on the scans, and believe me, we looked for everything."

"What if the nanobots can also act like the chip?"

And now her brain was finally functioning--analyzing, looking at fact patterns, recalling a life-time of schooling. Without thinking she lifted her hand to gesture. Even as she continued to drive home her point, a small part of her registered a sensation of loss. The connection had been important somehow. "It's possible, but it also seems to me that if they could, Krycek would have used that feature before this time. You know what poor impulse control he has."

Fleeting grins were exchanged, a shared moment of gallows humor.

"Look, there's a whole other possibility. What if this is some version of post-traumatic stress disorder? It's not unknown for people who have experienced traumas, including near death, to react in a variety of ways including sleep-walking or..."

"Sleep-traveling?" His tone was sharp, but underneath she thought she now heard a hint of normalcy. She hadn't realized, until that moment, how thin Skinner's voice had been.

"Well, I was going to say, essentially blackouts, but yeah--something akin to waking up somewhere and not quite knowing how you got there."

He closed his eyes, and leaned back in the booth. The creak of the ancient vinyl startlingly loud and somehow out-of-place in the stale-coffee air. He seemed to be lost in thought, or maybe memory, or maybe sheer weariness. It had been, she thought, a very long week, month, year for all of them.

When he looked back at her, though, she finally recognized him again. "Hard to know what to wish for some days--chips in my brain, or a brain that's all screwed up. God knows I've been down that road before, after..." He shook his head. "Hard to know...."

"I know." And she did know. But she was also out of ideas, exhausted and still not sure exactly what she  
was doing here. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to go home."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He hadn't meant to call her.

It had taken him only a couple of minutes to realize he was in Baltimore, even as he realized with a feeling of near terror that he had no idea how he'd gotten there, or even what day or time it was.

Twilight Zone episodes were always so much more entertaining when they happened to someone else.

He walked and walked--the streets winding through residential areas that were mostly quietly tucked in for the night, and then through the business district, that, like all urban areas was so eerily deserted after dark. For a while he'd tried to think through the problem, to figure out what the hell was going on. After a while, simply walking was more important.

He'd wandered into the diner almost by accident. He hadn't planned to rest, to stop, but the neon sign had drawn him--a migratory moth to an impersonal flame--and he'd walked through the door before fully registering what he was doing.

The diner had been nearly empty, and the waitress didn't seem to care that he didn't want anything besides coffee. Some time later, he'd found himself in the back, at the pay phone, Scully's number already half-dialed before he'd thought to ask himself what he wanted of her. It did not seem to be his finest night for careful analysis.

But he'd finished dialing anyway--let the call ring through. He needed to hear a familiar voice in this strange night, and there were less than a half-dozen people in the world he could trust, and only two lived in DC.

Her sleep-smudged voice was the first touch of warmth he'd felt all night, and he couldn't stop himself from asking her to come up and meet him.

During his wait for her he'd nearly gone back to the pay phone a half-dozen times to call her and tell her not to bother to make the drive up. But the weakness won out. He needed to see her. He carefully did not plan or think about what he would say to her when she arrived.

When she'd finally appeared in the diner, for the briefest of moments he didn't recognize her. Somehow she seemed too bitterly warm and real--a visitor from another dimension. But she walked down the diner aisle to him and he felt his shoulders relax marginally. It would never be all right. But maybe it could be better.

On the drive back down to Virginia, it occurred to him that there was so much more he could have said to her in the diner. On balance, though, he was glad he hadn't.

The interior of her car smelled of leather and something darker, more complicated. They drove through the early morning black in silence, the hypnotic thrum of the tires interrupted only occasionally by the inevitable cracks and flaws in the road's surface. This time the silence between them wasn't so stretched and fraught. He spent most of the drive gazing out the side window, the buildings and tree-shaped shadows barely seen blurs hurrying by them. After a while, his gaze pulled in a little, and he saw her reflected in the glass. He didn't think she knew he was watching her in reflection. Oddly, he failed to feel at all guilty for watching her drive. For watching her.

As she took the exit to Crystal City he stirred, finally, seeing the buildings and street lights of the sterilely familiar area he lived in. They were already back? The drive had seemed short.

"Do you want to come up?" He was asking several things with the simple question, and he wasn't sure which she answered when she said yes. He filed away the tone of her voice to analyze at another time.

He keyed in the security code for the garage in his building and directed her to a visitor's parking space.

His car was in his space. They walked by it on the way to the garage elevator, and as they passed it, they stopped and looked it at for a three-second eternity, and then continued on with no comment.

His apartment was empty. Cold. It was a late Spring evening, and the air outside was chilled. He'd left a window open, and the apartment smelled crisp, clean. No scent of cooking food or anything personal to mark the space. For a moment, seeing it through another's eyes, he realized he barely lived there at all.

He automatically motioned her ahead of him, and then closed and locked the door behind them. Crossed the floor to close the window, turned on a lamp.

He turned to find Scully with her weapon drawn and leveled at him, her gaze sweeping the living room. He couldn't remember how he was supposed to react when someone pointed a weapon at him. He was so damn tired. He settled for raising his eyebrows--raising his voice seemed like too much work. "Scully?"

"There could be someone here." She dropped her voice to a whisper and the husky tones carried through the quiet room, leaving strange reverberations in their wake.

He regarded her steadily, feeling like a schoolboy trying to translate a difficult foreign language.

"There's no one here."

She started to argue and stopped. He saw her sway slightly, as though the weight of her own weariness had finally settled hard and final about her shoulders. She holstered her gun and sat down on his couch without looking at him or speaking.

He watched her for another second, and then walked over to his bar and got them each a scotch. Neat.

He handed her drink to her, and sat across from her in the leather armchair that showed subtle signs of wear compared to all the other pristine furniture in his tasteful living room.

He took a swallow of his scotch, pausing to let the soft accustomed burn work down throat and into his chest. A sensory memory from more nights than he wanted to recall. He was startled to hear himself speak. "So, come to any conclusions? Did I wander up to Charm City thanks to technology or a fucked-up psyche?" Bitterness barely discernible, but still shocking.

She seemed to have been thinking about it. She answered with almost no hesitation, "I'd go with a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable series of events. It was just a trip to Baltimore."

"I don't remember how I go there." Low, emphatic--something between anger and fear resonating just below the surface. He fought to reassemble his tone, himself.

"We all do things we don't remember. This is a little...unusual, but scarcely a crisis." Her tone was level, reasonable. Her cool logic, more than anything else, was his touchstone tonight. That she would argue with him, and not simply provide meaningless reassurances, meant more than he could say.

She continued, almost casually. "Look, it happened. Was this the only time?" He started to nod, and then caught himself, and slowly shook his head.

At that her breath caught. "There have been other times?" Slowly, quietly, trying not spook a skittish, wounded animal.

"A long time ago." His voice changed timbre. Low, the register of an almost-forgotten memory. "After...after the first time I died."

She put her drink down on the table. Carefully. "The first time you...?"

Skinner was already half-lost in the memory, and had to fight his way back to the present to see her clearly. "Mulder never told you?"

She shook her head, as though she were afraid that words would shatter the fragile moment.

He was still looking at her, but his focus shifted 28 years backward. "I joined the Marines at 18..."

He unfolded the story that he had only said out loud to two other people, describing the sensation of floating over his own body, watching himself on that jungle floor. Telling of the peace he'd felt at that time, a quiet he'd never found again.

He told the story from a long dark distance. He'd moved away in time and place, until he wasn't sure he'd find his way home again. But he kept telling her--telling her what he'd never told Mulder--about the grey, sensationless place he'd dwelled in the two weeks before regaining consciousness in the military hospital in Vietnam, about the months of rehabilitation that taught his body how to function again.

And finally he found himself admitting to her that twice during his physical rehab treatments, he'd woken up in the middle of the night to find himself miles away from the rehab facility, with no memory of how he'd gotten there.

Still lost in the memory--the star-filled sky of the desert area outside the Arizona VA facility where he'd been treated, the feel of the sand crunching and sliding under the soles of his shoes, the sharp bite of a night wind--he was startled back to the present by Scully's touch.

She was crouching beside him, running her hands along his arms--lightly touching, pressing. Trying to shape him back to this life, this world.

He stirred a little under her touch, and looked at her. His focus snapped back to the present. She stilled. He started to speak, but couldn't find the words. He tried to remember why he'd been telling her that story. Why he had said aloud things he didn't even let himself think about.

She was searching his face, her eyes worried and lit by something for which he had no name. She asked him  
gently, "How did you get home?"

His vocabulary had deserted him, and he had no concrete image to tie to the idea of 'home.' He frowned, concentrating. "I hitchhiked. I wasn't far from I-10."

"Why didn't you call someone?"

"There was no one to call." And he had to close his eyes because he couldn't bear to see the pity that would be washing through her expression.

Her right hand moved down, and he was surprised to feel her fingers lacing with his. She tightened her grip, and he knew she was asking him to meet her gaze. Because he was not a coward, and because he had long ago given up any illusions about what his life was, he opened his eyes.

There was no pity. Only a deep understanding and compassion. "I'm sorry." There were so many layers to her tone.

"Why?"

"You were so alone."

"It's just life." A loose fragment of knowledge floated by. "Joseph Conrad said, 'We live as dream, alone'." He shrugged a little. "It's just life."

"No, you're not alone." He was surprised by a small anger he heard in her voice.

It was the anger, which he realized with a small jolt was on his behalf, that undid him. Made him say the thing that had been running through his mind all night, all week. "I am alone and I'm so fucking tired. Why am I still doing this? Is it simply because I can't run? Because I think Krycek will find me no matter what?"

She responded without thinking, revealing more, he thought, than she'd intended. "I'm tired, too. I think about quitting at least once a week. I keep going because there are still battles to be fought and we are going to be among those standing when this all ends."

She had always had the soul of a warrior. It was one of the many things that drew him to her. He responded to her tone, more than her words. Something almost like hope flitted across his heart. A shadow on barren ground. "Do you think any of us will be left standing, Scully?"

Before she could draw again on the flame of her defiance, he continued, unable to stop himself. "Yes, I think maybe you'll be left. You and..."

Now she cut him off. "So will you." And hearing her belief, for a moment he believed as well.

But belief was only a chimera. He of all people knew that. There were immutable facts that shaped all of their lives, and those facts dictated an anonymous and probably pointless end for him. He had no words to answer her.

Silence claimed them again. He heard the quiet tick of the kitchen clock, the urban-sea shore sounds of traffic ebbing and tiding below them.

She shifted a little, her fingers moving against his own, and he realized she was still crouched beside him. A remote part of his brain reminded him that she was probably uncomfortable.

He stood, in order to pull her upright as well. Their hands still intertwined, he could almost feel her pulse beneath her warm silk skin. He looked down at her--seeing not the agent, but the woman, the friend. For a lightning-lit moment he allowed himself to see her as something more, something closer, more intimate. He ruthlessly suppressed those thoughts.

Instead, he very slowly brought their joined hands up to the level of his shoulder. Shifted his grip and gently kissed the back of her hand.

To her startled, but silent beauty he said, "Thank you." There was nothing else to say, really.

He heard her quiet gasp, and watched the seas shift in her eyes. A tempest forming at levels fathoms deep. She reached up and touched his face, fingers trailing along his jaw line--touch light, but leaving scorched paths in her wake.

He froze, absolutely still, waiting for her to complete the gesture. Feeling the world slow on its axis, time crystallizing around them.

She dropped her hand and stood in front of him. He watched her watching him, and wondered what she saw, what she could read in his face. He did not know what his eyes said, only knew that they were betraying something he'd long ago sworn never to tell.

She said again, "You're not alone." But this time it was a question, something almost like a promise.

He tried to remember how to breathe. The images washed over him--red hair and white skin against his sheets, her small hand moving up his arm and across...laughter and something much hotter and brighter in her eyes...the generous, mobile mouth open in a gasp....

He swayed slightly under the physical impact of the sudden avenue that seemed to be opening in front of him. Even knowing that what was being offered would be limited, restricted to this small corner of time, he felt the need and longing welling up inside him.

Reality reasserted itself. Nothing could truly be restricted to a single corner of time, and there were possibilities he had long ago surrendered. He had forgotten that for a moment, but he could never escape entirely.  
.  
He spoke, a careful neutrality forced into his tone. "No, I'm not alone. I do have...friends." He paused, watching her deliberately put a minute distance in her expression. "Thank you, Scully. I...appreciate your help tonight."

She gave an almost imperceptible smile. "No problem."

She turned and walked to the door. She stopped, her hand on the knob, and turned back to him. "Call me if you need...if you ever need a ride again." She left before he could say anything else. Which was just as well.

Her footsteps had receded down the hall, and the chime of the elevator had long faded away before he finally crossed the floor and locked the door behind her.

He turned and leaned against the door, seeing, with only a vague sense of surprise that the VCR clock said it was nearly 5:40 a.m.

He shoved his hands deep in his jeans pockets and dropped his head, heavy against his chest. His shoulders felt tight, muscles abused and knotted. Moving, at the moment, seemed impossible.

His fingers caught on a small piece of paper, deep in the left pocket. He pulled it out, and held it up to the light.

An Amtrak ticket stub from DC to Baltimore mocked him quietly in the first light of dawn.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Scully spent the rest of Sunday half-waiting for and half-fearing the call that eventually came at 5 in the evening.

"Agent Scully?" The words, more than the tone, told her all she needed to know. The quiet reassertion of formality confirmed the distance she had already suspected. She answered in kind.

"Yes, Sir?"

"I just called to say...thank you." And for the briefest instant, she heard again all the colors of  
his voice.

Simplicity had always suited both of them best. "You're welcome."

He hung up without saying anything else.

Several weeks later, she had to go down to Research for copies of some old crime scene photos. The rows of cubicles on the 3rd floor had always seemed like a giant maze to her--a warren of some strange species of animal that scurried back and forth in endless search of new information, clues and data. The parallel lines of offices, cut at merciless right angles by the bisecting corridors left her feeling nearly dizzy as she negotiated the unyielding matrix.

She moved through the hall as quickly as possible; intent only on getting the one file folder she needed to complete their report.

Movement along one of the next aisles caught her peripheral vision, and she turned her head just in time to see Skinner striding along beside her--walking a parallel line to her--walking at her side on a path, that in this universe would never intersect hers. She stopped, waiting to see if he saw her, too, but he simply kept moving, until he vanished from her sight.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and situations of The X-Files are the property of Fox Broadcasting and 1013 Productions. No infringement is intended.
> 
>  
> 
> _parallax._ noun. An apparent change in the direction of an object, caused by a change in observational position that provides a new line of sight.
> 
> Notes: Deep thanks and respect to Rev the Fabulous for Beta assistance. Also to Jordan, whose writing inspired this bit of madness. And to Meredith. Just because.
> 
> Feedback would be most deeply appreciated and responded to with a glad heart.


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